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hamburger
The chopped meat dish known as the hamburger
originated in the city of Hamburg, Germany. In the United States, it was
known as hamburger steak and was served as any other steak. Over time, the
hamburger steak degenerated from a steak to a sandwich filling, known as a
hamburger. It is now the biggest selling fast-food item in America, with
over five billion sales per year.
Hewlett-Packard
The company was founded in 1939 by William R
Hewlett (1913-2001) and David Packard (1912-1996) in Packard’s garage in
Palo Alto, California. Both had just left Stanford University with degrees
in electrical engineering. Their first product was a resistor capacity
audio oscillator, which Hewlett had designed at university.
Hippocratic Oath Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 375 B.C.) was given the title ‘father of medicine’
on account of his studies of illnesses and their remedies. He came from
the island of Cos in Greece from a family of priest-physicians.
Hippocrates was the first person to separate religion from medicine,
claiming that the gods had no part in the illnesses visited on mankind. He
drew up papers on diseases and cures based on his observations, without
regard to previous superstitious ideas. He proposed that medicine should
be a profession and that every adherent should take an oath on entering
the profession. The modern oath is not in the same form as Hippocrates’
original but it is still known as the Hippocratic oath.
Hobson's Choice Henry Ford said of his customers’ choice of car
colour. “They can have any colour they like as long as it’s black.” That
was Hobson’s choice. No choice at all. The saying comes from Thomas Hobson
(1544–1631), a liveryman in Cambridge. He found that undergraduates would
select the fastest horse and then ride it to exhaustion and some horses
were never chosen. He devised a scheme where the horses served in rotation
and therefore the horse that was used had had the most rest. He led the
next horse for duty to the stable door and the customer could take that
one or no horse at all. Hobson made a great deal of money from his stables
and left funds for a public fountain for the market place. It still exists
but no longer in the market place. Sadly his stable, nearby St Catherine’s
College, no longer exists.
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Thomas Hobson aged 84 |
hooliganism Clarence Rooks in his book, Hooligan Nights
(1899), writes that ‘There was, but a few years ago, a man called Patrick
Hooligan, who walked to and fro among his fellow men, robbing them and
occasionally bashing them.’ Hooligan was employed as a chucker-out at
drinking establishments but one day had an altercation with a constable,
which resulted in jail. Not long after, he was admitted to hospital where
he sadly died. Hooligan had no interest in football but he left his name
to the riotous element commonly associated with football supporters.
According to Hoyle
In the seventeenth century, after Cromwell’s puritanical regime had
fallen, theatres, drinking houses and public entertainments became popular
once more. Card playing also became the popular pastime of the gentile
classes. The trendy game was whist but there were so many variants of the
rules that it became impossible for the game to be played consistently.
This led Edmund Hoyle, an English writer (1672–1769), to write a book of
rules entitled A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist (1742). The
text soon became the accepted authority on the game, which led Hoyle to
write on other card games and backgammon and others. ‘according to Hoyle’
came to refer to the final authority on any game. Hoyle lived to be 97 and
was buried in St Marylebone churchyard.
hygiene
The Roman god of medicine, Aesculapius, had seven daughters, including
Panacea and Hygeia. Panaceas' name means ‘all-healing’. Hygeia, from the
Greek hygies, means health. Hygeia was given the power to keep away
disease and to ensure good health. The preamble of the ancient Hippocratic
Oath used to say “I swear by Apollo, the healer Aesculapius and Hygeia and
Panacea and all the gods and goddesses..” |